Viewpoints: UK trade v human rights

Prime Minister David Cameron is under fire for his decision not to join a boycott of the Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka. He is also attempting to build bridges with China after he angered its leaders last year by meeting the Dalai Lama.

Is he getting the balance right between promoting British trade and other interests abroad and human rights? Dr Stephen Davies, education director at the Institute for Economic Affairs "Everyone wants to see individual liberty expanded in all parts of the world - the question is how to do this most effectively. "The key is to expand 'social power', the ability of people to act, and to reduce 'political power', the capacity of elites to use force and the power of government against people to limit their freedom of action, speech and thought.

"More trade is crucial for this. It undermines the power of despots, their ability to control populations, while increasing ordinary people's resources, their connections with each other and their ability to organise and co-operate. "The spread of the mobile phone through trade and commerce has done more to undermine authoritarian government than any amount of action by more liberal states.

"While we should all strongly support action by civil society organisations such as Amnesty it is not clear what governments should do. "The main role of governments is to protect the rights of their own citizens and to provide a stable system of law for them. "Attempts to make greater trade dependent upon changes in policy will simply lessen the kind of transformations brought about by trade and private action, which in the longer run will do more to increase liberty and undermine tyranny."

(2013-11-16/bbc)